


Trixie 2020, in the Time of Covid 19

by ChiaraRose



Series: Ten Acres School [1]
Category: The Trixie Belden Mysteries - Julie Campbell Tatham & Kathryn Kenny
Genre: 2020, COVID-19, Coronavirus, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:54:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23456596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChiaraRose/pseuds/ChiaraRose
Summary: For Jixemitri's Circle Writing Event #21, a 2020-word story on any subject, just one that happened to be on my mind, for some reason. How would the grown-up Bob-Whites respond to a pandemic?
Relationships: Trixie Belden/Jim Frayne
Series: Ten Acres School [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2134956
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	Trixie 2020, in the Time of Covid 19

Trixie Belden Frayne pulled clothes out of her closet and threw them at random into a suitcase. "Just checking to see if I have enough," she muttered. 

Her six-year-old daughter and three-year-old son pulled them out just as fast.

“Mommy, you cannot wear this color. You are a Spring,” said Juliana-Katje in a perfect imitation of her Aunt Diana.

Trixie’s phone buzzed at that moment.

The children shouted, “Belden-Wheeler Detective Agency. Trixie Belden speaking.”

Trixie chuckled, and so did the person calling: coincidentally, the children’s Aunt Diana.

Di wasn’t worried about color palettes. “Trixie, did the hospital call you too? Are you going?”

“Yes! Yes! Well, I haven’t talked to Jim yet. He’s teaching. But what’s Mr. Honorable going to say?”

“Of course he’ll say you should do it. What have we been Bob-Whites for all these years if we wouldn’t answer when our community calls? That’s what Mart said. He’s been great all these weeks of sheltering in place, getting me set up to do online demonstrations and meetings with my clients, but sometimes I want to scream, ‘What does it matter what color your couch is? There’s a global pandemic going on!’ I mean, I’m glad Brian told us at the end of January that we needed to start sheltering then, but it’s been a long time!”

Trixie agreed. “It seems like forever, not just a few months. I’m just glad that our families believed him, except for the Wheelers.”

“Oh yes! Parents can be so stubborn.” Diana heaved one of her theatrical sighs. She still enjoyed acting with the Sleepyside Little Theatre, though her current and next plays were cancelled. “Now I’ll feel like I’m making a real contribution, like Brian and Honey. Not exactly, but you know. What did you say you wanted to do? I just said anything they needed.”

Trixie said, as she pulled Win out of the suitcase, before Julie-Kat could shut him inside. “I said I’d be most useful in Purchasing, tracking down supplies and equipment, if any exist. It would be like detective work, something I’m good at.”

“And if it doesn’t exist, I’m the best person to talk somebody into making it,” said Di, excitement swelling in her voice. “I have contacts with fabric artists and fabricators, with all the special orders I’ve had made for my clients. And they’re all sitting idle, watching their businesses die.”

“What company wouldn’t want to be a hero now? Di, we’ll make the best team.”

“We will! Can you go right away? I asked for a few days to get everything arranged. Have you got any open cases?”

Trixie echoed her sigh. "I’ve been helping with Jim’s school since Honey went from Brian’s part-time nurse to working day and night at the hospital. Belden-Wheeler might as well be shuttered. Most of the boys stayed--if they had good homes, they wouldn’t be with us. But we lost some teachers and house parents--Sleepyside PD wanted Dan full time--so Jim needs everybody he can get.”

“His and Honey’s parents--they’re still in New York?”

“Yes. They’re scared, with so many people getting sick. The reasons they prefer New York don’t apply any more. Yesterday Madeleine was talking about coming back to Manor House, but Honey--Honey!--said they couldn’t see the family, even if they did quarantine for two weeks, because people with no symptoms can still be carriers. Madeleine cried, and Honey shouted that her parents made their choice, even though Brian warned them, and she should just stay in New York.”

Di gasped.“Honey said that?”

“Yeah. She cries herself to sleep every night, after she reads to her kids on Facetime. She doesn’t know which would be worse, the kids having a blast with Grandmoms or being miserable and homesick. Moms is in heaven, of course, keeping Andy and Mallie.”

“Poor Honey!” Di’s voice caught. “But she’s right, isn’t she? Keeping her kids away and staying in hospital housing, that hotel by the highway? I thought I should too, and not risk infecting Mart and the twins.”

Trixie swallowed. “Yes, she’s right, and you’re right. It’s bad enough as it is. I’ve been doing the shopping, picking up the groceries curbside, and I have to set them outside while I disinfect all the containers and then use the outdoor shower and pitch all my clothes--shoes too-- in the washer. That’s why you never see me in anything but canvas shoes any more.”

“I hadn’t noticed. You look like you always do.”

Trixie bit back a retort. “Jim says it’s just not worth the risk, not when he’s responsible for all the boys and the staff who stayed. Some of them are elderly. That’s why Jim hasn’t visited any of our families, even though we’ve all been sheltering since February.” Trixie swallowed. “So I would have to leave too.”

“My parents want Mart and the twins to move in with them while I’m gone. Mart could use their help while he’s trying to write and do his IT work. But your mother wants the twins too.”

“There’s not enough room in that little house they bought in town!”

“I know. My mother suggested that everybody move in with her and Daddy. They do have the room, and some of the staff stayed, those that didn’t have places to go. She’s offered to keep Julie-Kat and Win too, if you and Jim want.”

“Gleeps, Di, I don’t know. It’s great of your mother, and Moms would be in heaven, having all her grands together. “I’ll let you know after I talk to Jim,” said Trixie as she bid her friend and sister-in-law good-bye.

“Talk to Jim about what?” asked her husband as he entered their bedroom. “What’s going on?”

“Mommy’s going away,” his daughter informed him. “And we are going to stay with Grandmoms and every one of the cousins at the Lynch’s house. Will you come too?”

“What?” Jim’s eyes popped wide.

“Sleepyside Hospital asked and Di and me to help out. They need administrative staff almost as much as medical people. Di’s going, and Mart and the twins and Moms, Dad, and Bobby are moving into the Lynch house.”

“And you are too?” Jim kept his voice even.

Trixie put her hands on her hips. “I’m talking to you about going.”

Jim walked to the window and looked out over his school. “Trixie, you know how hard I’ve tried to keep the boys, the staff, and my family safe.”

“Yes, I do! You’re absolutely right, to minimize any contact with the outside world. So many people depend on you.” Trixie gnawed her lip. “The school is your dream, your calling, and I’ll always support it, but I’m watching my community die, and I’ve been asked to help stop that.”

“You’re proposing to go right into the heart of plague and bring it home every day?”

“Mommy and Daddy are fighting,” Julie-Kat said to her brother.

Tears welled up in Win’s eyes. “No fight, no fight!” He grabbed Jim’s legs and sobbed.

“Mommy and Daddy are not fighting,” Jim said as he picked up his son and kissed the boy. “We are having a reasonable discussion. Do you know, the boys are taking the shelter dogs for walks. Would you like to help them?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” shouted Julie-Kat, jumping up and down in the suitcase.

Win nodded, smearing tears and snot on Jim’s neck.

As a family, they walked down the stairs and out the front door, Julie-Kat grasping Trixie’s hand and Win still in Jim’s arms. Trixie made sure she brushed against Jim, not difficult with Julie-Kat hopping this way and that.

Trixie took a deep breath of spring, full of new growth and new life, before reminding herself that it was dangerous to breathe deeply, then reminding herself that she was in the country, where so far they were safe. She felt so lucky to live next to the house where she grew up. She glanced at the house behind her, the house Jim built, and then at all the school buildings and dorms on Ten Acres. The buildings were quiet and still, with the boys doing their outdoor chores. Some boys were preparing land for new crops, sending a tangy, earthy scent into the air as they turned over the dirt. Others tended the farm animals. Trixie could see and hear them exclaiming about a new lamb over the background of mooing, bleating, and clucking. The younger boys were cautiously feeling the hens’ nests to gather eggs.

Julie-Kat darted away when she saw her favorite shelter dog, a big white husky. Win kicked to get down when he saw the dachshunds and Corgis waddling along. His toddling steps matched theirs.

Jim’s boys welcomed the Frayne children. It always warmed Trixie’s heart to see them acting like big brothers. Thinking of the surly, hurt children they were when they arrived, she swallowed a lump in her throat. Jim worked so hard to develop his school, to develop the young men now taking care of so much of it, to protect them and his family.

He started to say something, but she interrupted him, crying, “Jim, I can’t do it!” She took a deep breath. “I can’t leave you here by yourself for who knows how long. I can’t undo everything you’ve done, when I’d be working at a hospital, full of every kind of germ. How could I be sure I wasn’t bringing the same nastiness you’ve tried to keep out? I'd have to live in town--I'd miss you all so.”

Jim’s eyes widened. “I never thought this day would come. I never thought I’d hear you say anything like that. I’ve struggled since we were teenagers to let you go when you felt you had to--and you’re always wanting to go somewhere, usually somewhere dangerous. I was trying to bring myself around to seeing you off this time, maybe not with happiness, but at least acceptance and pride that you always help in any situation in any way that you can. I know you wouldn’t come back home until we’re both sure it’s safe, no matter how long that is.”

“But your sister and your best friend are working in the hospital, your parents are in New York, right in the epicenter of the coronavirus. How can I leave too? Moms is taking all the Belden grands to the Lynch house, and she’d take Julie-Kat and Win--!“

“No.” He set his jaw the way he had when she first met him fifteen years ago. “Our children stay with me.”

“Of course. But how can I leave you with a school to run and children to care for? I’ll tell Ms. Lee I can’t do it.”

Jim squeezed her hand. “What does she want you to do?”

“I told her I’d be best at purchasing, finding supplies and equipment. Diana will too. Between our skills and contacts--your parents and hers too--I know we can get the medical staff what they need.”

Jim’s brow furrowed, and he frowned. “But Trixie, that means online searches, phone calls, other computer work--Can’t you do that at home? Why do you have to sit in a plague-filled hospital? Even the administrative staff are getting sick.”

Trixie gasped. “Jim, I never thought of that. Surely Mart could set up my computer. I’ll call Ms. Lee right away!”

Jim hugged her close, smashing her nose into his chest. When she could breathe again, she inhaled the wonderful, outdoorsy Jim aroma that still filled her dreams.

He murmured into her hair, “I still don’t understand why she called you in the first place.”

“She’s calling everybody who ever worked at the hospital, medical or not, retired or just moved on. She says it’ll be easier to train people who already know how a hospital works.”

Jim shouted with laughter, so loud that all the boys turned to look at him in astonishment. Trixie smiled, not understanding, but happy to hear him laugh again after the grim months.

He wiped his streaming eyes. “Trixie, you were a teenage volunteer candy striper!”


End file.
